NRI Says Moving To India From Canada Taught Her How To Live: "Fuller, Warmer, More Human"

An NRI recently shared on Instagram how moving back to India from Canada "rewired" her entire life, calling the experience a mental shift rather than a logistical one. Zeel Shah, a "mom blogger" who currently lives in Surat, highlighted moving from a life of optimisation and productivity to one that is "fuller, warmer, more human" with increased community support.

Shah explained that in India, life isn't "optimised" but it is "felt," with days full of interruptions and conversations, which challenged her previous belief that her worth was measured by productivity. She mentioned that while her privacy "shrinks," the support she receives "multiplies," a significant change from feeling like she was "doing life alone" in Canada.

The transition, she felt, was less about the logistics of addresses or schools and more about unlearning the need for control and accepting a different pace of life. Despite occasionally missing structure or silence, she expressed gratitude for a lifestyle that has made her life "fuller" and "more human".

"I thought moving back to India would be about logistics. Addresses. Schools. Routines. I didn't realise it would quietly rewire how I live. Here, days don't rush me. They arrive with noise, interruptions, conversations, and chai pauses. Life isn't optimized but it's felt," she wrote on Instagram. 

"Watching my child grow here reminded me of something I forgot. that belonging comes before independence, and community before convenience. Moving back didn't make life easier. It made it fuller, warmer, more human. And maybe that's the habit I'm most grateful for," she added. 

Watch the video here:

In a series of photo slides, she shared the lessons she learned here. She observed that mornings didn't begin with alarms but with the natural sounds of life around her. Instead of measuring her days by productivity, she began to value how present and grounded she felt. Fresh food became part of her daily rhythm, with meals prepared mindfully and without haste. 

She developed a new kind of patience, one that came from breathing through moments of chaos. While her sense of privacy shrank, her feeling of connection with others grew stronger. She let go of the need to control every outcome and instead learned to adapt, adjust, and soften. Help arrived unprompted, without explanations, offering quiet support when it was needed most.

Her post struck a chord with many online. One user wrote, "Can totally relate, feeling the same after returning to India."

Another commented, "Love this! Learning this right now."

A third wrote, "More power to you, be happy n healthy."